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Sunday, 17 May 2015

I've wanted a pond since I was about 6 years old. My mother tells me how at that tender age in 'my' part of their back garden I once dug a small dip, put in a black bin liner and filled it with water then sprinkled some leaves on, you could call this my first pond although I can't imagine it was very successful and only probably lasted 5 days before they discreetly removed it.

So my pond plan has developed a lot over the next 40 odd years - as these things do. I am now going to include a bridge over it, this will allow me to make the pond slightly bigger. I think the view of the little Summer house with a bridge over a pond to it will be rather lovely.
The thought of all that digging is a little daunting, but after all that is just hard work and not exactly requiring great skill. I have, as is my nature, been doing my research and decided that a good quality butyl rubber liner will be the best option for me, both from the point of view of price and versatility, that way I can go to the exact shape that I want.
Today I started the process putting the plan down on paper. The raised bed will come out - it has not been a huge success and as it went in before the summer house, it has always been in a slightly annoying place so I'm not sorry to lose it. So between the pond and the summer house will be a gravel garden making access far better and reducing yet further my lawn area (fine by me, there'll be none left soon at this rate!). Meticulous planning has always been my best way of success in the garden so here is the first draft of the plan (artist I'm not):

These things are always subject to change before the spade hits the soil of course, but I am happy with the look as it stands. The important thing to me is that it looks as natural as possible, I've never been a fan of ponds that don't blend in to the surroundings well, so the planting will be very important and so far I'm no expert on pond plants - far from it.

So now I will think about it for a bit, modify here and there and then off we go. Progress will, of course, be recorded.